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"It's really not that exciting," Merlin says.
"You were a stripper?" Arthur repeats. He's asked three times now in the same tone. Merlin worries he may have broken the poor man's brain.
"I needed the money," Merlin offers the next customer in line an uncomfortable smile as he hands off her bagel and coffee. It's hard to overhear conversation behind the bar with the espresso machines going off, but all the same Arthur isn't being terribly discreet.
Arthur stops gaping for a moment to wipe off his steam wand and set up another pitcher of 2%. Then he looks back around. Merlin's pretty sure he doesn't like what he sees in his fellow barista's pretty blue eyes. "Did you wear the...you know?" he leers, making indistinct suggestive twiddles with his fingers near his hips.
"Do you need room for cream?" Merlin asks his next customer too loudly. He hopes he doesn't look as panicked as the old man's hesitant expression suggests he does.
Later, when he's clocking out and Arthur's waiting for him with his apron draped over his arm (he's going to have to ask Gaius not to schedule the ends of their shifts fifteen minutes apart anymore, because this is ridiculous), no convenient excuses about how he has to go and no he doesn't have time to chat, thank you Arthur, spring immediately to mind.
"So it must have paid really well, yeah?" Arthur muses as they walk out together. Merlin lengthens his stride, fiddling his car key into his hand.
It's not that he doesn't like Arthur - they're mates, after all, and Arthur's one of the few people Merlin can stand to work with in such a shite job aside from Gwen - which is why he's not keen on the idea of letting his questionable career choices get in the way of their dynamic. It's easy with Arthur, even though he’s lately taken to asking awkward sex questions and making suggestive jokes. Merlin's lost friends before just by coming out to them; detailing his completely unrelated stint as a dancer who danced for men --men who paid him really good money because he was a man and men of the gay persuasion enjoyed watching him dance-- didn't seem like an advisable way to keep a straight friend who he teasingly crushed on and kind of secretly loved.
"Yeah," Merlin agrees, blushing and fouling his key around his lock for an hour before it finally slides home and he can make his escape. "Later, man."
+
"You know at the girl clubs, it's not like they have a salary or anything, right?" Arthur non-sequiturs one night at the pub. Gwen's eyebrows soar, glancing between them with a crisp arrested on its way to her mouth.
"What?" Merlin says.
"Well they don’t all get paid the same, do they,” Arthur says reasonably, oblivious to the fact that Merlin is choking on his horror at revisiting this fucking topic with no warning. “I expect there are favorites, some who are better with the pole than others or prettier or whatever. Was it the same—”
“ Yes ,” Merlin grits, hand clenched around his fork. “Yes it was, Arthur.”
“What’s all this then?” Gwen asks, eyeing Merlin’s whitened knuckles and flaming face.
Arthur seems to realize for the first time that he’s made Merlin uncomfortable, because his expression blanks before he shrugs her curiosity off with a simple “Just something we were talking about on Monday,” in a masterwork of nonchalance.
Gwen smiles. “Slow morning shift?” she says knowingly, and Merlin unbends enough to reply “Yeah. And we ran out of espresso; Arthur kept giving everybody decaf because he was too lazy to call out for it.”
“You weren’t running for the phones either, if I remember correctly,” Arthur points out. Gwen cackles evilly, grabbing for another crisp.
And the danger passes, but Merlin feels a little as though something sore and brittle has settled across his shoulders and he avoids Arthur’s eyes a bit until they all part ways a few hours later.
+
Outside of work, Merlin’s wardrobe is a bit eclectic in an unintentional sort of way. He has too much color coordination to be a hipster and his pants have too many holes to make him preppy. He’s also inordinately fond of neck scarves; he thinks of them as accessories with modest natures, not expecting to be complimented or even commented on much at all. The last possible word he would use to describe his taste --out of all the many, many words in the dictionary-- would be ‘sexy,’ so when Arthur shows up at his flat one night asking for a lap dance Merlin has to assume he’s a little drunk and meant to knock on Mrs. Next-door’s door. Nevermind that she’s fifty five with three kids and two grandchildren, Arthur is straight and Merlin is not the type of gay boy straight boys experiment with because he just isn’t and wouldn’t want to be even if he could.
But Arthur doesn’t smell like Jameson’s and his eyes are clear and intent and it makes Merlin suddenly very angry, because he never expected this from Arthur, Arthur who would regularly hit Val for making tasteless jokes about the overweight girls that bought the blended drinks at work.
“Why won’t you just leave it alone?” he demands, tugging Arthur inside and slamming his door so he can shout at him without waking the neighbors. He makes the mistake of looking Arthur right in the eye, and his stomach rolls uncomfortably, and suddenly he’s feeling reckless and too hot and like he could stand to lose a layer of clothing or three anyway. He doesn’t want to hear what Arthur has to say, because this might stop before Merlin has a chance to show him what a prick he’s being, so he puts a hand over his mouth and backs him into the living room, pushing him down on the coffee table and shedding his hoodie. “Fine, I am fucking doing this to settle whatever perverse curiosity you have and when we’re done you can stop talking about it, alright? Shut up,” he adds preemptively when it looks like Arthur’s about to open his mouth.
He spins to something random on his sex playlist in his iPod. The bass is a heavy rolling pulse they can both feel in their feet, even through the carpet. Merlin looks at Arthur for a brief moment, giving him a chance to back away while their friendship is still relatively intact, but Arthur’s mouth is a grim expectant line. Merlin realizes a little late he may as well have thrown down a bloody gauntlet, because he’s never known Arthur to run away from anything.
Just as he doesn’t run now, even when Merlin slinks his way to Arthur’s side, swiveling until he’s standing over his lap. And Merlin doesn’t hold back – he’s no blushing eighteen year old girl trying to impress her boyfriend – the last time he did this he walked away with seventy five quid clipped into his garter belt.
He dips between Arthur’s spread legs, he writhes with the beat and touches himself when he moves around to switch his position, he doesn’t hesitate to lean into Arthur when his knees bend and he’s using Arthur’s broad chest to steady his back while he grinds his denim-clad arse into Arthur’s trouser-clad crotch. Arthur’s hands are glued to the coffee table; Merlin’s hands are on Arthur’s hips beneath him, his head back against Arthur’s shoulder.
It comes out of nowhere, the shuddery breath against his ear, but it sends a wave of nausea crashing through Merlin’s gut and he’s out of Arthur’s lap so fast he almost gets away.
“Merlin,” Arthur says, jerking at the slim wrist in his hand to stop Merlin from trying to pull free.
“You,” Merlin says, swallowing painfully, “Arthur, you need to leave; okay, just – go ,”
“Fuck, Merlin,” Arthur reaches for him and Merlin recoils so hard he hits the wall. He is mortified, and beyond that freaking out a little about what this is going to mean ; what’s he going to say when he has to explain to Gwen why they can’t all hang out anymore and is he going to have to ask Gaius to stop scheduling him and Arthur together completely, and will he eventually have to quit and move to a completely different city and cut off all his hair and change his name?
So he’s not exactly expecting it when Arthur belts him around the head and shoves his shoulders into the wall and his tongue into Merlin’s mouth.
“You are,” Arthur says, long, dizzying moments later against his lips, “without doubt, the biggest bloody idiot this side of the continent. Really. I feel as though I should have a plaque made for you.”
“What?” Merlin says intelligently.
“I have been flirting with you for months. Months , do you understand me? And you, you have been oblivious, telling Gwen of all people how you felt—” Merlin makes a note to himself to plot a suitably elaborate death for her later, nervously stroking his hands through Arthur’s hair while Arthur leans into the touch, closing his eyes, saying “and I cannot be patient or subtle anymore. We’re settling this tonight, because we both want me to fuck you stupid, and that. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Merlin spends a moment collecting the scattered pieces of his sanity, finally working up the nerve to meet Arthur’s eyes. Their faces are so near to each other Arthur’s fringe tickles at his forehead. “Months?” he asks weakly, “Is that what all the weird, y’know—” he gestures vaguely between them, indicating the odd comments and long looks and strange tension that’s been quietly building for a while now.
“ Yes ,” Arthur says, exasperated.
“Oh,” Merlin says. “Okay.”
And as far as declarations go, it isn't terribly eloquent, but they’ve always been better suited to action anyway.
The fact that they manage to wake Mrs. Next-door in the process of making good on Arthur’s promise some hours later is a testament to that.